“Il ne faut pas que l’honorable membre pousse le bouchon trop loin, M le président. Le Premier ministre a le droit comme tous les autres consommateurs, de par la loi en vigueur - s’il va consommer plus que les 5 kilowatts - de faire une demande en bonne et due forme au CEB et si la demande est approuvée, comme tous les autres consommateurs, il a le droit de bouger de la SSDG à la MSDG. Maintenant, ce qui est important et ce que l’honorable membre ne dit pas, en se faisant le Premier ministre fait les tax payers économiser dans ce sens-là et je vais dire pourquoi. Par ce que, en installant un PV Installation où il produit sa propre électricité, il a baissé sa consommation par beaucoup et il faut le savoir que quand quelqu’un occupe le poste de Premier ministre, c’est l’État qui paye pour sa consommation d’électricité. En se faisant, il a fait de l’économie des tax payers de ce pays, M. le président. "
And some of the morons in the NA cheered.
Totally wrong, we are not just saving on the PM’s electricity bills, we are also meeting the cost of CEB”s investment on the “PV Installation for Residential Purpose” which is usually recouped by the CEB on net amount of electricity produced. Thus, taxpayers are also paying for the cost of the investment by the CEB.
Second point, the PM may be less inclined to reducing his consumption of electricity as compared to any other consumer who knows that if he reduces his consumption, he will have more left to sell to the national grid and to provide for the cost of the PV installation.
Third point, everything has an opportunity cost; opting to install 30 kilowatts at Angus Rd means that we have deprived some 15 poor families the possibility of saving on their electricity bill.
I do not see any reason to cheer !!!
All these kinds of benefits for civil servants, extended to MPs and Ministers and PM, have its origin in the limited capacity of Govt to recruit and retain a talented and educated bureaucracy. Wages at the low end of the scale were high compared to their private sector counterparts whereas at the other end of the scale, wages for technical staff were low. This gave rise to efforts to compensate the low wages through fringe benefits such as official cars (or the possibility to import cars duty free), overseas passage benefits, transport and entertainment allowances and other allowances ( including IT and cellphone). With every PRB report, they kept up adding one extra allowance.
Now that we have a surplus of talented professionals and more educated labour who want to join the civil service both at the lower end and the upper level , we should monetize all these benefits & allowances which will help to reduce the allocative inefficiencies and lack of "transparency" of the income sources of top officials, MPs, Ministers and the PM ,which was adversely affecting the "prestige" of the top executives of our High-Income Economy.
